


Exits

by grumpyhedgehogs



Category: Daredevil (TV), Iron Fist (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Coda, Discussion of Morality, Episode s03e13 Coda, Ethics, Friendship, Gen, Hallucinations, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Panic Attacks, Threats of Violence, Ultimate Sacrifice, Vigilantism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 08:42:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19663813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumpyhedgehogs/pseuds/grumpyhedgehogs
Summary: Three different people who could've shown up on Jessica's doorstep in episode 3x13.





	Exits

**Author's Note:**

> Written directly after watching the series finale. That ending was great, but come on- can you really tell me you didn't want a cameo of every Netflix hero before the end? Go on. Look me in the eye and lie to me. Title taken from Jessica's inner monologue about disasters.

The elevator doors slide open with the same creak they always do. If she were up to being comforted by the familiar, Jessica would be.

But now- now the familiar is unfamiliar. Now everything right is wrong. Now home is just an empty house. Now her sister is a monster- and Jessica has no idea what the fuck she’s going to do about it.

She looks up, feeling the fatigue she hasn’t been able to shake off for years settling deep into her bones. Jessica knows she won’t sleep, won’t rest, will barely even breathe until Trish is stopped. She wonders if she is the cause of this; could she have done something differently? Could she have stopped this if she had just tried a little harder? Worked a little longer? Been more of a hero?

But the past is the past and thoughts like this won’t help her save Trish from herself. 

_ Can she really be saved? _

These thoughts have been whirling around in her head ever since the disaster in the courthouse and they only stop dead at the sight of Matthew Murdock slumped against the door to Jessica’s apartment. He leans there, a slight smirk in place, both hands resting on the pommel of a cane she knows he doesn’t need, a shoulder pressed against the wall. She never could understand how he made something as simple as leaning on the wall look smug. 

Must be his superpower.

“Hello, Jones,” Matt greets as she strides down the hallway.“Back from some private investigations?”

Despite herself, Jessica finds herself smiling. She knows he can hear it in her voice as she answers. "Hey, Murdock. Back from the dead?” 

Yeah, she’s not gonna let the fact that he conveniently “forgot” to tell her and Danny and Luke he was alive for months on end go any time soon. She’d had to find out from the fucking tabloids, for god-sake. 

Murdock’s lips twitch. “Having a bad day?”

She takes a moment as she comes upon him; Jess can tell he knows she’s being dramatic, looking him over with her brows raised, her arms spread as if to question if he’s really asking her that. 

“Are you really one to judge?” She gestures none too subtly at his face, which is characteristically covered in bruises. She can see the redness from scrapes on his knuckles where he grips his cane lightly.

He laughs and God, but she’s missed having someone to laugh at her shitty jokes. She’s missed having someone, period. Even when Jessica was alone she’d had Trish.

“Nah, I leave that to the experts,” Matt shifts, inclining his head as Jessica silently holds the door open for him. “I just present the arguments to them.”

“Ha, ha,” Jessica replies dryly. As soon as the door’s closed behind him she slips passed and searches for- oh there we go.

“Drink?” She tilts the bottle towards him. 

Matt cocks his head. “You know it’s like, two in the afternoon, right?” At her scoff, he pauses and then shrugs. “Sure.”

There’s quiet for a moment as Jessica pours. When she hands the glass to him, Matt takes it with one hand but catches her wrist in the other, cane held in the crook of his arm. She doesn’t jerk back like she really wants to, but it’s a close thing.

Matt slides his hand down to gently rest their palms together. She can see his eyes behind the red lenses; somehow, he knows just where Jessica’s eyes are.

“I heard what happened. Seems like we’ve got another violent vigilante on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen.”

“I wonder where I’ve heard of that before.” Jessica knows she’s deflecting. She can’t quite bring herself to care.

Matt dips his head in acknowledgement, smiling wanly. “She’s a little too hard-hitting for my tastes.”

Jessica clenches her jaw, takes a sip of her drink, then a gulp. She drains the glass. “Mine too,” she eventually returns. Matt lets their hands drop and just inside her own head Jessica allows herself to miss the warmth. She refills the glass and debates simply drinking from the bottle. It’d be faster.

Matt shifts on his feet. “You know who she is.”

“If I tell the cops I’d be betraying her- betraying someone I love.” The words burn her throat like alcohol hasn’t for years. Jessica briefly wishes that she were the type to cry her frustrations out- she can feel the familiar prickle at her corneas, just begging to be unleashed.

But she can’t take a minute to bawl her eyes out now. She’s got work to do. Heroism to perform. No matter the cost.

For a second Jessica thinks he won’t accept her answer, that he’ll keep pushing with that intensity he learned in a court of law. But Matt simply nods, and drinks his bourbon.

“But you’re going to stop her.”

“Do I really have a choice?”

“There’s always a choice, Jessica,” Matt tells her. The sincerity in his face makes her want to gag. It also makes the urge to cry grow more pronounced.

“The only one I'm qualified to make is...bourbon or more bourbon.”

“I know you think that,” Matt says. He’s taking a long time to respond; Jessica can see him deliberating, choosing his words with care. It’s funny; with others she hates that, people acting like they were walking on eggshells around her. With Matt- well, that’s just how Matt is. He's an over-thinker if she's ever seen one. “But Jess, you’re more of a hero than you know.”

“Oh, piss off, Murdock.” The anger flares hot in her chest. Deep down there’s a voice that pipes up, telling Jessica she isn’t really mad at the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. She’s angry at herself, for hoping he’s right.

“Months ago, I was planning to kill a man.” The words are jarring. It feels less like he's let a closely kept secret slip and more like he’s landed a punch right between her eyes. “The Kingpin, Wilson Fisk- you remember?”

Oh, yeah, she remembered that bald prick. Remembered thinking someone would have to step up to him eventually, too. She’d counted herself lucky that Daredevil had reappeared and done the job for her.

“Sure. Seemed like an asshole.”

Matt laughs again. “Oh yeah, he was. Worst type of person. And he was so smart, Jess. Too smart. I fought him for years, over and over. And he- he was winning.

“I got to the point where I wanted to give up. I thought God was telling me that it wasn’t my fight to win. But the first time, I finished it. I beat him. And then, when I came back against all odds, I knew that I came back changed. I was harder, more impulsive. Out of control. And there Kingpin was, back in the throne of power I’d torn away from him."

He’s staring out her window. Without the unfocused eyes and the glasses and the cane, she would think he’s contemplating the skyline.

“I thought I didn’t have a choice. I thought God had brought me back to end it- to end Fisk. So I decided that I had to kill him.” Matt turns his head towards her. It’s hard to breathe. “It seemed so logical- it would save so many lives.”

His words leave a bad taste in Jessica’s mouth. She grimaces and tries not to picture blonde hair and blood and wild blue eyes. This story, this reasoning- it all seems very familiar.

“I needed Foggy and Karen to talk me out of it. It almost didn’t work.”

“But it did,” she prods, maybe pleads. She has to know. Jessica can see where he’s going with this and she has to know. She has to.

Matt pauses for a second that lasts a lifetime, and nods. Her lungs come back online. “It did. I didn't kill him. But it was a close thing.”

She doesn’t know what the hell he wants her to say to that. Matt shrugs, more to himself than anything, and places his glass on her desk. “I meant it when I said there’s always a choice, Jess. But it’s not your choice I’m talking about. Whoever she is, the masked vigilante made her choice with Nussbaumer. I’m sorry you’re left to deal with the fallout.”

“Now I’m stuck with the shitty choice of what to do about it.” Jessica finishes for him. She downs her second drink. “God I fucking hate giving a damn.”

“That’s really too bad, because you're exceptionally good at it.” Murdock loses the smirk when she huffs at him. He tilts his head and looks disconcertingly like a beat up puppy dog. It should not make her feel a little better, but that doesn’t change the fact that it does. “I mean it Jess. There’s a difference between you and her- she’s a vigilante. You’re a hero. 

“You make these choices and let them destroy you not because you can’t handle the consequences, but because you know that anyone else would break under them. You sacrifice yourself for the good of others, even when it kills you. You don’t run from a fight, even when it’s so much easier. And you don’t let yourself go too far either, even though _ that’s  _ so much easier. Even at the end of the line, you’re willing to give the benefit of the doubt to someone who has buckled under that weight, who can’t deal with the consequences like you can. You won’t allow yourself the easy way out- you won’t kill to save yourself the pain; and what’s more is, you’ll try to save others from themselves when they fall to the dark.

“Violence is for the masses, Jess. But forgiveness- that’s for heroes.”

And Jessica had promised herself she wasn’t going to cry. She sniffs, wipes her nose with the back of her hand and dips her head. When she raises it, she’s decided. Her eyes are hard.

It’s time for Jessica Jones to get to work. She tells Matt as much.

Murdock smiles and it’s the Devil’s grin. “Need a hand?”

“No,” Jessica tells him and for the first time in a long time, she really believes it. “I’ve got this. It’s my responsibility. My fight.”


End file.
